Unable to Remove Microsoft Office 2004: "You Do Not Have Permissions"

***? I bought it. I installed it (same account as I only have one). I used the "Remove Office" tool and walked through all the steps, but then it gives me the error telling me that I don't have permission to remove it - to log in under the account that was used to install it (uh... same one). The little pop-up keeps appearing 9,000 times before it finally says it failed and saved a "Rescued Items" folder to the Desktop. UGH! This is why people switch in droves.

I bought iWork '09 today and love it; I have no need for Office anymore and want to remove it from my computer (to free up space). Does anyone know what's going on with this or what workaround there might be? Again... I only have one account. The only thing I can think is that I did change my password once, but the login name has always been the same. I have AppZapper, but I know that doesn't work with stuff like this - but if their own "uninstall" utility doesn't work... I don't know what to do. It just doesn't make any sense.

I could walk you through manually removing all the files but the easy way is to just log on to your machine as ROOT and uninstall from that account. ROOT has permissions for everything. See the following Apple KB article.

Enabling and using the "root" user in Mac OS X

Regards.

First off... thanks for letting me know about the root user thing; I had no idea you could do that. Ok, here's where it gets strange. I went in and enabled the root user, rebooted and logged in with root user access. I went back to the "Remove Office" file and ... I originally saw two folders (the Office one and some trial dealio), but this time... there was only one left. Anyway.... I said ok and it searched and came back with the same message - that I didn't have permission to do so and to please log in with the original account used to set it up. I closed out of the 9,000 pop-up boxes and thought "ok, I guess that's that." Ugh, right? Yeah, except one thing... the Microsoft Office folder that was in my Apps folder... is gone. I THINK it actually deleted it, but... not sure. I thought ... "Ok, I'll check Spotlight - see if anything shows up." It does, but when I go to hit the file it generates an error that says "The application 'Finder' cannot be lauched. -35".

Anyway to know for sure? Also... while it may not be on the computer, any idea how to get rid of all the ghost files that still show in Spotlight? If I try to open any of them, I get the same launch error. So frustrating. I really hate Microsoft. Maybe it's me, though. When I enabled root user, I didn't close the lock; would that have made a difference? I logged back in under my normal account, though, and when I went to the Director Utility... it was now showing "Disable Root User", so... must have worked? I don't know. I need a drink. Thanks, again; I really appreciate you taking the time.

Ahhh... wait a minute. I forgot that I have VMFusion and XP, as well. I was able to delete a "Microsoft User Data" folder, but not "Microsoft Updater". I started wondering why I couldn't delete updater (said it was running) and then I thought "huh... I wonder if it has anything to do with XP. I have noticed that my computer is a bit faster now.

Sounds like you had fun deleting Office 2004. Glad it worked out OK. Have another drink.

Regards.